Jamie Smart’s Nlp tip 50

Power Chunking, 4 February 2004

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If you only have 30 seconds, see ‘Business Essentials’ & the summary

at the end of the main text.

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This Week’s Tip

Hello everyone, & welcome to the 189 new subscribers who have joined us this week (to see previous tips, go to The NLP Tip Archive.) 

One of the ‘old chestnuts’ of NLP is the famous 7 plus or minus 2 rule – the idea that the conscious mind can only keep track of between 5 & 9 discrete pieces of information at one time.  Your unconscious can keep track of bujillions of things simultaneously (apparently), while your conscious mind is more step-by-step, & has a fairly narrow focus.  (By the way, this isn’t necessarily true, but it can be a useful way of thinking about things.)

Here are a few things you can do to test the extent of your conscious mind: Without writing them down…

-         Name as many chocolate bars as you can

-         Name as many TV shows as you can

-         Name as many pop groups (or classical composers) as you can

Many people run out of steam when they get to ten, ostensibly because of the 7+-2 rule.  The bottom line is, when the conscious mind is presented with more than 9 pieces of information, it gets overloaded.  So before you send me a rude email telling me off for pointing out the limits of the conscious mind, would you like to know how you can use this to your advantage? 

When you bear the 7+-2 rule in mind, you can start to organise things so that you work with your conscious mind, playing to its strengths.  For instance, if you have a to-do list.

Take control of your to-do list

Many people have a to-do list with 20 or more items on it.  This is a recipe for total overwhelm (at which point they resort to looking for the easiest or funnest thing on the list to do.)  The following process can help you get a handle on your to-do list really fast:

1)      Scan through the list, looking for items that can be grouped together into categories.

For example, here’s a bunch of the stuff on my list for this week:

Write NLP tip                                      

Bank cheques                                    

Finish writing training manuals            

Prepare for client meeting                  

Write marketing info                          

Final preparation for new course                  

Collect training manuals                     

Read business book                           

Run invoicing process                         

Make follow-up calls                           

Prepare for teambuilding session

Write marketing material

Read new web-page copy

Book training course for me

Review new CD covers

Meet PR people

Do proposal

Read e-book

New course blurb

Meet with prospective administrator

Clear inbox

The first thing on the list is ‘Write NLP Tip’ – for me, the NLP tip is one of my products, so I write ‘Product’ beside it.  Next is ‘Bank Cheques’ – that’s part of our cashflow system, so I write ‘Systems’ beside it.  Pretty soon, every item on my list is in a category:

Write NLP tip                                       Product

Bank cheques                                     Systems

Finish writing training manuals             Training

Prepare for client meeting                   Marketing

Write marketing info                           Marketing

Final preparation for new course                   Training

Collect training manuals                      Training

Read business book                            Leadership

Run invoicing process                          Systems

Make follow-up calls                            Marketing

Prepare for teambuilding session         Training

Write marketing material                     Marketing

Read new web-page copy                             Marketing

Book training course for me                People

Review new CD covers                       Products

Meet PR people                                   Marketing

Do proposal                                        Marketing

Read e-book                                                Products

New course blurb                                Marketing

Meet with prospective administrator    Systems

Clear inbox                                         Systems

Great! I’ve gone from a list of 21 items (instant overwhelm) to a list of 6 categories (manageably within my 7+-2 limit.)

- Products

- Systems

- Training

- Marketing

- People

- Leadership

This is called chunking, & is one of the most effective ways of dealing with any large or complex set of tasks (or set of anything else).  You may say “Great, but I’ve got 200 things on my to-do list”.  It doesn’t matter – the same principles apply.  If you go through your to-do list & only manage to whittle it down from 200 items to 20 categories, that’s OK – go through the 20 categories & see where they group together.  The key is to have no more than 9 categories at each level – this way your conscious mind can keep track of it.

2)      Start to manage your to-do list by the high-level categories. 

You can use this in all sorts of areas to make things more manageable, for instance:

-         To-do lists

-         The filing system on your computer

-         Your filing cabinet

-         Any project you’re doing

One of the things this allows you to do is notice very quickly if there’s a specific area where you haven’t been taking much action lately – very useful for helping focus on what needs attention.

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-         Look at problems from new perspectives, & create brilliant solutions

-         Get others to see you in a whole new light

-         Generate the kind of business results you really desire

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Summary

Take a to-do list with more than 9 things on it and…

1)      Scan through the list, looking for items that can be grouped together into categories.

2)      Start to manage your to-do list by the high-level categories. 

More next time - have a great week J 

best wishes,

jamie

PS. Are you already an NLP Practitioner or Master Practitioner who would like to get a new perspective on the material.  We give mmmmassive price reductions for people who already have an NLP license.  Accelerated Prac starts in March, & Modular Master Prac in April.  Contact me for more details.